


death mask kiss

by Cunninglinguist



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Accidents, Alcohol, Allusions to Past Murders, Asphyxiation, Birthday Sex, Biting, Blood, Bodily Fluids, Bondage, Breathplay, Canon-Typical Violence, Choking, Clubbing, Community: theoldguardkinkmeme, Dancing, Dirty Talk, Drugs, Face Slapping, Feelings, Graphic Description, Guilt, Happy Ending, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Joe is Happy to Please, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani and Nicky | Nicolò di Genova are in Love, Knives, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Necrophilia, Nicky is a Freak, Pain Kink, Porn with Feelings, Pre-Canon, Recreational Drug Use, Rough Sex, Shameless Smut, accidental necrophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:21:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26919529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cunninglinguist/pseuds/Cunninglinguist
Summary: Joe would long be asleep by now, were it any other night, nose nuzzling the crook of Nicky’s neck, drooling steadily on his soft grey tee shirt. Instead, he’s tangling arms with his beloved, pulling their bodies close in a sardine-packed club as they take their fifth shot in as many minutes. Their wrists meet, blood pulsing in unison to the deep, grimy beat of the music.It’s hardly the type of environment they frequent, but tonight is special: it’s Nicky’s birthday. Or they think it is. It’s at least somewhere in the general vicinity of his birthday. The calendars have changed too many times to know with any amount of certainty.Alternatively: Joe and Nicky go out, then go home to indulge themselves in some rough sex and breathplay. The evening takes a few turns when Joe gets a little too into it.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 55
Kudos: 287





	death mask kiss

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this [exquisite prompt](https://theoldguardkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/953.html?thread=24761#cmt24761) on The Old Guard Kinkmeme. 
> 
> Please read the tags! 
> 
> Fic title taken from this [appropriately named banger](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Woqh014hppk), because I am always listening to industrial and thinking about my ships.

_New York City, 1999_

Joe would long be asleep by now, were it any other night, nose nuzzling the crook of Nicky’s neck, drooling steadily on his soft grey tee shirt. Instead, he’s tangling arms with his beloved, pulling their bodies close in a sardine-packed club as they take their fifth shot in as many minutes. Their wrists meet, blood pulsing in unison to the deep, grimy beat of the music.

It’s hardly the type of environment they frequent, but tonight is special: it’s Nicky’s birthday. Or they think it is. It’s at least somewhere in the general vicinity of his birthday. The calendars have changed too many times to know with any amount of certainty. 

Joe hadn’t even thought to ask Nicky about his birthday until twenty-odd years had passed between them, only five of which had been spent entirely in peace. 

“Between the warm and the cold,” is what Nicolo had said in broken Arabic, following up with something unintelligible in his mother tongue. Joe had nodded, said “I understand,” though it would take him another five years to puzzle out that Nicky had meant his birthday was in the autumn. 

Since then, Joe has always made an effort to do something to celebrate at some point between September and November, anything his beloved wants to do. 

This year, Nicolo wants to drink. And dance. 

Nicky slams his shot glass onto the bar, slick with so many spilled drinks and God only knows what else, face puckering at the taste. Joe laughs. “Ready to dance now?”

“Yes.”

“Lead the way.” He follows Nicky through a crush of scantily-clad people. His eyes linger on many of them, covered in sweat and body glitter, dancing to their hearts’ content. It is still so incredible and humbling to see people of all types, all genders, all shapes and sizes losing themselves in music, free to love themselves and their partners with no fear of repercussion.

Open displays of who Joe is to Nicky, who Nicky is to Joe, have been deemed socially unacceptable for far longer than they have been acceptable--even now they are still, at best, frowned upon in certain spaces and places--so every once in a while, they cannot help but to indulge themselves in a place like this. 

And Joe would very much like to indulge in far more than dancing with Nicky right now, despite the fact that they’ve only just arrived. He knows he’s got a dopey smile on his face as he stands in the middle of the dance floor, head swimming with booze as he ogles the man he’s had the privilege of loving and kissing and fucking for almost a thousand years like it’s the first time. He cannot help it: his beloved looks divine in dark wash jeans that cling to his long legs like flesh, and a pretty deep-blue silk button-down that Joe had gotten him on Savile Row. 

How Joe would love to tie Nicky down and slowly cut each button from its thread, one by one, with his dagger, the one with the curved blade and double edge that he picked up during the Battle of Gallipoli (or perhaps it was after), the dagger that Nicky begs him to bring to bed more often than the others. 

Nicky catches his heated gaze, huffs a laugh through his nose, and pulls Joe close. 

“You look beautiful tonight, _omri,”_ murmurs Joe against his ear. “I love to dance with you, but I must admit, the thought of taking you back to the apartment is beginning to cloud my judgment.”

“Joe, it has not yet been an hour.” 

“I know.” Joe buries his face in Nicky’s hair, settles his hands on his hips. “It’s your night, I am here to serve your every whim.”

“I should certainly hope so.” 

Joe chuckles, feeling Nicky’s smile like a ray of sunshine before he leans in to whisper in his ear, “Would you allow me to further cloud your judgment?” 

He watches, bemused, as Nicky reaches into his back pocket and produces a small plastic bag filled with colorful pills. 

“Oh?” Joe raises his eyebrows. “It’s that kind of party?”

“Only if you want.”

“It’s been a long time.”

Nicky nods, eyes sparkling, as he brings a hand to his lips. He sticks out his tongue, revealing two pills stamped with haphazard hearts. 

Joe had not expected Nicky to want this tonight, but he’s got nothing to do and nowhere to be, except for right here with the other half of his soul, so he leans in and plunges his tongue between his Nicky’s lips, swiping one pill into his mouth and swallowing dry. 

“Salute,” he says with a grin.

“To your health,” says Nicky. 

Time becomes irrelevant as they dance. The music is new, German, probably, with heavy electronic beats that settle in Joe’s veins and vibrate throughout his body. He fixes his eyes on Nicky, desire growing in his belly with every sway and shift of his hips. He reaches out to touch, and Nicky lets him, pulling him close for a few blissful moments before spinning a respectable distance apart. He’s a tease tonight, but Joe doesn’t mind. He loves it. They have all the time in the world. 

Nicky’s finally against him, pelvis rolling against Joe’s, breath hot on his neck when that sweet, tingly warmth caresses his brain before flooding his body with euphoria. He runs a hand down the sleeve of Nicky’s shirt, now rolled to the elbow, groaning when his fingers hit skin. 

Nicky sighs, presses his face against Joe’s neck, and sighs again. He’s coming up, too, and Joe’s heart is so close to bursting he can’t stand it. He tilts Nicky’s chin up so their eyes meet, and Joe finds himself plunged into the depths of the ocean, pitch-dark and all-encompassing, hungry and mysterious, ringed with pretty bright seaglass. 

With a shaky exhale, Nicky kisses Joe on the lips, hard, unforgiving, as he continues to grind their hips together. Joe takes his jaw in one hand and pushes his tongue into Nicky’s mouth, enmeshing them, sealing them together until they are one. 

Nicky is magic in the shape of man, and Joe is a man possessed.

“I have another request, _hayati,”_ slurs Nicky, swollen lips slick with Joe’s saliva.

 _”Ayouni,_ Nicolo.”

“I want you tonight.” Nicky grabs Joe’s shoulders with familiar urgency. “And I want you to be rough with me.”

Every hair on the back of Joe’s neck stands at attention. “Tell me.”

“I want you to hold me down.” The molasses-slow grind of his hips sends white-hot licks up Joe’s spine. “Tie me to the bed. Force my legs apart.”

Joe’s heart pounds in his bone-dry mouth. He slides a possessive hand down Nicky’s body and grabs his ass. “What else?”

“Want you to spit in my mouth, slap me in the face.” Their eyes meet, and Joe nearly throws his beloved deviant to the club floor to take him right then and there. “Choke me until I can’t see. Make me suck the spend from your fingers.”

“Love of my life, stars in the sky, one of these days you are going to give me a heart attack with your filthy words alone.”

“But not today.” Gentle teeth catch on his earlobe. “Defile me, Yusuf.”

Joe lets out a strangled groan and buries his nose in Nicky’s sweat-damp hair as a million glorious recollections of Nicky making requests like these flash across his mind’s eye. A hand snakes between their bodies to rub where Joe is hard and wanting, pulling a gasp from his lips. 

Nicky whispers, “Take me home?”

Joe nods so fervently it’s a wonder his head doesn’t snap clean off his neck. 

The walk home is a blur of city noise and bright lights, punctuated by soul-stealing kisses against brick walls and starry-eyed gazes, clammy hands meeting and melting apart. Joe manages to access the last remaining fraction of his rational mind to force them to stop in the corner bodega for a pack of water bottles so they won’t hate life entirely in the morning. 

There’s another couple in the elevator of their high-rise, a couple Joe recognizes from their floor, but they are too far gone, each given over to every sordid fantasy that would become their immediate reality. Nicky is making desperate little noises as he sucks on Joe’s neck, and Joe is running his hands over Nicky’s body, tugging his shirt out of his waistband, pressing sweaty cotton against burning skin. 

Their temporarily captive audience keep their eyes forward as they grope one another like fumbling teens, managing to wrangle enough decorum to let them out first. Joe briefly entertains an apology, but then Nicky’s undoing his belt buckle in the hallway and nothing matters but getting him alone, being inside of him as quickly as humanly possible. 

Once the door closes, Joe rounds on Nicky and rips his lovely, expensive shirt, sending buttons flying before they even turn on the lights. Nicky lets out a startled laugh, and Joe slots a thigh between his legs. 

“Still want me to be rough, _caro mio?”_

“Yes, please, do what you want--” 

“Still want me to use you?”

 _”Yes!”_ Fingernails dig into Joe’s shoulders as Nicky humps Joe’s thigh with a desperate groan. 

Joe grabs his wrists and crushes them against the wall. “Tell me, who gave you permission to rub yourself so crudely against me, hmm?”

“Ah, no one.” Nicky arches his back, pressing forward for contact that Joe denies him. “I’m sorry, my love.”

“As well you should be.” Joe releases him suddenly. “Go use the bathroom now. Once I get started with you, you won’t be receiving any breaks.”

Nicky runs off to comply, nearly tripping over his own feet in the darkness of the apartment. Joe’s blood is coursing through his veins with preternatural speed, still synced with the music in the club, spiked with drugs and lust. As much as he loves to be sweet and gentle, slow and romantic with his beloved, the fire that burns constantly within him for Nicky is raging now, craving something angrier, more destructive, something that recalls the violent passion of their first encounters in a far more pleasurable way. 

Nicky’s heart flutters like a bird’s wings as Joe pushes him onto the bed and climbs on top of him. “Shall I get the knives? Cut these fine clothes from your body?”

An impatient groan is the only answer he receives. He chuckles. “Another time, perhaps.” 

Nicky fights him, just a little, just for show, as he peels him out of his sweaty clothes. 

“Oh,” he breathes when his Nicolo is laid almost bare before him, arousal darkening the front of his briefs. “The things I am going to do to you, _hayati.”_

Nicky’s lips part. He drags his hand down his chest, sliding it into his underwear. “Best to hurry and do them, I might finish without you.”

That snaps Joe right out of his reverent haze. He wrenches that treacherous hand away from its destination, eliciting another gasp as he pins it above Nicky’s head. “So greedy,” he snarls in Arabic. “Such avarice should be met with unyielding punishment, should it not?”

He watches as Nicky’s head lolls side to side, a loose-limbed, high-as-hell attempt at feigned protest. 

“Hmm...I’ve decided that the desires of a little whore are irrelevant.” He reaches over Nicky to fumble for the restraints they’d left tied to the bed posts. Nicky’s breathing hitches. “I’m going to tie you to this bed and use you for my own pleasure until you’ve got no fight left in you, until the idea of being fucked again makes you desperately try to close those pretty legs, but I won’t let you rest, not until I’m finished with you.”

Nicky lets out a litany of curses and prayers in long-dead languages, and Joe forces himself to hide his grin. He loves it when Nicky gets like this, covetous of their once barbarous interactions, the need for physicality that had consumed them even before they could properly communicate. 

“Do you remember that night in the desert?” Joe pulls the restraints tight. “You came for me while I was sleeping. I put my blade through you, my love, I thought you were trying to kill me.”

“Which night?” Nicky gasps as Joe grinds down against him. “Which desert?”

“Somewhere along the road from Harran, maybe.” Joe laughs, breaking character to gently thumb Nicky’s jawline, adoring the way his beloved leans instinctively into his palm. “It was very early on, because you did not yet have the skills to tell me that it was not my blade you were after.”

“I came to you first? I don’t think so.”

“But you did.”

“Hmm...that is not how I remember it.”

Joe hooks his fingers into Nicky’s waistband and tugs. “And yet, that’s how it was.”

Nicky groans, lifting his hips. “Revisionist history.”

“I will fight you on the details later.” Joe presses a quick kiss to Nicky’s soft stomach, which earns him a breathy laugh. “Now make yourself useful and spread your legs.”

He does, of course, and Joe’s breathing like a beast of burden as he runs his hands up and down Nicky’s legs, over his torso, watching his chest rise and fall, their pulses and breaths symbiotic as each point of contact electrifies the both of them. 

“Yusuf,” whispers Nicky, arching into his touch. “Please.”

“What did I say?” With a sneer, Joe grabs Nicky’s balls, barely suppressing an answering shudder. He lunges, grips Nicky around the throat, and glowers into wide, drug-blown eyes. “I don’t care what you want. I’m going to take you when I take you, however I want. Understand?” 

The fluid that pulses onto Joe’s thigh answers before Nicky can nod. Joe slaps him across the face. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Good.” Joe pulls off his remaining clothes and grabs the lube from the nightstand. Nicky snaps his legs together, pulling at his restraints and watching heatedly as Joe drips the viscous fluid all over his hand. With more force than necessary, Joe pushes at Nicky’s strong thighs, but his love makes him work, clamping them tight with a grimace of effort. 

“Fucking tease,” he grits out, vision briefly tunneling with lust and chemicals as he finally wrenches those legs apart. He presses down hard on one thigh and pins the other with his knee, completely bypassing his straining cock to rub behind his balls. “You are still so tight here, even though you’ve been had so many times. How can that be?”

Nicky huffs and rocks his hips, desperate for more substantial contact. 

“How many times do you think I’ve fucked you?” Joe can hear his own arousal as he continues to circle Nicky’s hole. 

“You’ve fucked me zero times today,” manages Nicky. A potent wave of euphoria rolls through Joe at that moment, and he sighs it out and narrows his eyes.

Fuck it. Nicky wants rough, Nicky will get rough.

Joe pushes two fingers inside him at once. Nicky cries out, back bowing off the bed in a perfect arch, one Joe has sketched and painted and sculpted many times, as he struggles to open around the intrusion. 

“You’ve got quite a mouth on you.” Joe twists his wrist and Nicky clenches, a mania flashing in his eyes that only serves to spur Joe on. “You are so tight on my fingers, Nicolo, will you bleed when I take you?”

Nicky’s lips part and he thrashes, thigh quivering under Joe’s sweaty palm. 

“You fight, but there’s nowhere to go, no one to hear your screams,” he continues, digging his nails into Nicky’s flesh as he crooks his fingers, pressing into his prostate. “I could have you tied up here for days, force you to come on my fingers, my cock, my fist. Think I could fit both of my fists inside you, hayati?”

“Fuck,” gasps Nicky, because he knows they can, with enough time and patience. Joe briefly considers making him come like this, on his fingers, then again on his cock, but the idea of waiting a second longer to be inside his beloved is utterly untenable.

Pretty thighs squeeze around Joe’s waist when he pushes in, steady, inexorable, scorching gazes locked together, and the sensation is nearly too much for Joe to bear. 

“Ah—wait—so much—” gasps Nicky, but Joe doesn’t stop, he knows he can take it. Nicky’s face is contorted, an exquisite reflection of that beautiful edge between pleasure and pain. If Joe had anything resembling presence of mind, he’d reach for his sketchpad. But he doesn’t, so instead he allows two heartbeats to pulse through their chests —thump thump, thump thump— before drawing his hips back, almost all the way out, and plunging back in.

They fall into a rhythm, Joe thrusting deep and unforgiving while Nicky twists in his restraints, eager to take all he is given and more, a powerful exchange of energies that has Joe seeing God. 

On a particularly delicious thrust, Nicky lets out a shattered, _”Yusuf!_ as his cock spits out more fluid, and a too-tight coil of desire snaps in Joe’s gut. 

“You love this, don’t you, Nicky?” Delirious, he sits back on his knees and grabs trembling calves, spreading him wider, loving how Nicky’s feet point and flex with each stroke. “To be tied down, helpless, split open?”

Nicky moans, and Joe slaps him across the face before grabbing his jaw. “Answer me.” 

“I love it,” he sighs, eyelids fluttering, drooling on Joe’s fingers. “I love it.”

“And I love it when you get like this,” coos Joe, squeezing his face harder. “My beautiful warrior, pliant in my hands, so vulnerable for me and me alone.”

“You and you alone,” gasps Nicky in Arabic. He seizes a little, like he might come, and Joe bites his lip at the grip of his beloved’s slick hole around him. “Oh, harder, more, oh God, my God, Yusuf, bite me, choke me.”

Furious arousal surges through him at the demand, vision tunneling. He yanks Nicky’s hair, hard, exposing the lovely column of his neck before biting down until he tastes blood. 

Nicky shouts, and the bedposts strain where he pulls at his bonds. “I’m so close, _omri,_ I’m so close.”

“Yes,” growls Joe, tracing the shape of his own mouth bitten into Nicky’s flesh with his tongue, capturing the rivulets of blood trickling down that pale flesh as the wounds heal as quickly as they were made. “You are going to come just from me inside you, but you are not going to come before me.”

“Mmm, no...no.” Nicky’s voice is so broken, so raw, and Joe can’t wait a second longer. He kisses Nicky with a ferocity brought on by nearly a millennium of memories converging, _blood pain sex death love love love,_ as his impending orgasm builds at the base of his spine, smearing blood across his lips. 

When he wraps his hand around Nicolo’s throat, the energy shifts between them: where there had once been mutual enjoyment, there is now a desperate chase, a fire outrunning a flood. Nicky grits his teeth and balls his hands into fists, wrists rubbed raw, chest heaving, looking up at Joe like a supplicant as Joe presses his fingertips into either side of his neck. 

Chemicals surge through Joe’s veins, colliding with his arousal as he tightens his grip, pushes down with his palm, baring his teeth in an answering grimace. 

Nicky shudders beneath him, eyes going wide. Joe doesn’t break their gaze as he bears down, hips pumping frantically, chasing the maddening heat within him. 

Something akin to fear flashes in Nicky’s eyes, igniting something ancient and feral within Joe as he presses harder, thrusts deeper, squeezing his eyes shut. Nicky emits a wheeze, heels sliding through the sweat on Joe’s lower back. He thrashes, just once, before there is a sickening crack and the delicate bone beneath Joe’s palm yields unnaturally, and Nicky’s body clenches around him before going limp.

Joe lets out a string of curses and clutches his neck harder, he’s so close, so close. His eyelids flutter open, but his gaze is met with neither fear nor fire, just two voids, black and soulless as deep space.

“Nicky?” He releases his neck and slows his movements, whimpering softly as his climax is stifled. He gives a few more languid thrusts, then presses two fingers to his beloved’s pulse point. 

Realization hits him like a bucket of cold water. 

“Nicolo?” He gently taps his face, mind racing--the hands that had once been fraught with enough tension for at least ten erotic poems now hang loose in their bonds, the face that had once been so expressive now slack, the lovely flush of pleasure fading rapidly from pallid cheeks. 

“Oh, fuck. I’m so sorry, my love.” Joe means to release his hands, to coax him back to life, but he immediately forgets what he set out to do as he accidentally shifts forward into his love’s body. He’s still so hot, so tight, and Joe’s teetering on the dangerous edge of a cataclysmic orgasm and another peak of drug-induced ecstasy. 

He rolls his hips once more, just to make sure it had felt as good as he thought it had, and lets out a groan. “Oh my Nicolo, my beloved, come back to me,” he murmurs against his ear, stroking his hair, kissing at the dried blood on his dead lips. He fucks him slow, deep, heart clenching as his lifeless body jerks below him. Nicky’s head lolls to one side, eyes open, unseeing. Still so beautiful, even in death--

There’s a sudden gasp, and Nicky shivers awake, eyes wide and fearful, collapsed hyoid bone restructuring itself below his flesh. “Yusuf--”

“Nicolo!” Joe stops and presses their foreheads together. “You're okay, thank God. I am so sorry, my beloved, I--”

Nicky surprises the words right out of his mouth as he bucks his hips frantically. “Fuck, don’t stop, don’t stop!”

“Are you certain?”

Nicky flops back on the bed with a thousand hoarsely babbled curses and wraps his legs around Joe’s waist. “Fuck me, fuck me!”

After a moment, Joe complies, pushing Nicky’s sweaty hair off his forehead as he drives forward, tongue-tied and right back at the precipice within moments. 

“Yes, yes, pull my hair,” whispers Nicky, eyes unfocused. “I’m going to--I’m--my God, my God, Yusuf, it feels so good, I’m going to--”

“Come for me, _hayati,_ my Nicolo,” murmurs Joe, still awestruck as he tugs Nicky’s hair back, not as hard as before, but that’s all it takes for him to be treated to the sight of his beloved shuddering apart, his orgasm tearing a ragged scream from his lungs as he convulses on Joe’s cock and splatters his heaving belly with come. 

Joe gasps, fucking him through it, groaning as he follows right after Nicky, releasing deep inside him with a shout. 

Thoroughly fucked, drugs still spinning his mind like a top, Joe kisses Nicky deeply before releasing his wrists from their restraints. “I’m so sorry, Nicolo, I did not mean to--”

“I know.” Nicky grabs his face and kisses him again, plunging his tongue into his mouth. “It’s okay, _hayati.”_

Overcome, Joe rests their foreheads together. “I cannot believe how careless I was, I don’t know what came over me--”

“You were drunk with power.” Nicky smirks, lovely face flushing. “I was also drunk on your power.”

Joe lets out a choked laugh, surprising himself as much as Nicky when fat tears roll down his cheeks. He rests his head in the slope of Nicky’s shoulder, letting his overpowering guilt pool on Nicky’s skin. 

“Shh.” Loving hands stroke Joe’s back, card through his hair, each touch a sweet burst of bliss that Joe doesn’t deserve. “It’s really alright. It was an accident.”

“How can it be alright?” Joe props himself up and grabs his face. “What if that was your time? It could have been my fault. How am I to live with myself, knowing this?”

Nicky laughs. Joe’s mouth falls open, and Nicky thumbs away his tears. “You have looked into my eyes as you disemboweled me, then tied me to a tree and let the crows peck out my eyes. I do not think a little, ah, overzealous erotic asphyxia would send me into the Reaper’s arms.” He shakes his head at the continuing guilt plastered on Joe’s face. “And it is hardly the first time you have indulged yourself in my dead body.”

Shame wriggles inside Joe like maggots on carrion. “Do not remind me of what a beast I once was.”

“I was also a beast. A far worse beast than you, if we’re speaking honestly.” It’s Nicky’s turn to look guilty, and Joe hates it. He’s about to quell any arising misplaced notions when Nicky continues, “Plus, and I used to think this was obvious, but apparently it is not: I like it when you’re a bit beastly. When the beast comes to visit.” He grins. “I have a complicated relationship with pain, Joe, you know this.”

“I know. But to actually be the cause of your death, no matter how short it was--”

“It felt good.” Nicky looks at him like he’s said too much. “To feel you in me, while I was coming back. It felt good in many ways. It was reassuring that you were there, and...it was rather pleasurable to heal a fatal wound so close to an orgasm. Well, that particular wound, at least.”

“Are you being serious?”

“Entirely.”

Joe narrows his eyes, finding it impossible not to match Nicky’s amusement. “Okay. I’ll take your word for it. But I am still so sorry, my love. I hate to see you like that.”

“Hmm. You like it a bit.” Nicky’s eyes are darkening again. “You once waxed poetic about the way I look when I am dead. What did you say? That I look...ah. I look like a flower frozen by the first frost.”

 _”Ya Allah.”_ Joe buries his face in Nicky’s chest. “So disturbing! Why do you let me say these things?”

“I love it when you say these things.” Nicky brings Joe’s knuckles to his mouth, kisses each one. “And after so many years, I think it’s okay if we are a little disturbing sometimes. I love you.”

Joe’s heart clenches. He kisses Nicky’s chest. “I love you more than I can say.” 

“I know you do.” Joe feels Nicky beaming through his flesh, down in his core. “But you realize we can never tell Andy about this.”

Joe is surprised by his own laughter. “No, God no. Never. Why would you even consider this?”

Nicky snorts and kisses his hand again.

They lie together as their highs ebb, Joe’s fingers against Nicky’s wrist, now healed from their earlier irritation. He feels his pulse, listens to the beat of his heart, thanking whatever forces that be for returning his love to him rather than punishing him for losing control. It is easy to get swept up in Nicolo, to lose sight of all else when they are together. A growl rumbles through him as he feels himself grow hard where he is still buried in his beloved. 

Nicky shifts, gasps. “Again?”

“We don’t have to, if you don’t want to.”

“What if I want to?” A hint of mania returns to Nicky’s face. “I still have quite a bit of ecstasy to work out of my system. And it _is_ still my birthday, after all.”

The smoldering embers of Joe’s lust roar back to life as Nicky catches his eyes and gently rocks up, taking more of Joe inside of him. Nicky runs his hands through the release congealing on his stomach and gently pries Joe’s mouth open. He accepts his Nicolo’s fingers like communion, sucking them clean as Nicky watches with parted lips.

“I know you want to be gentle now, to make up for something I would prefer you not waste any time feeling guilty for,” says Nicky, breathing hard. “But if you change your mind, I would not be opposed to you getting the knives this time.”

“Hmm.” Joe gently pulls out and plants a kiss on his lips before maneuvering him onto his hands and knees, already salivating. “I think I want to lick my come out of you first, perhaps bring you off with nothing but my tongue, then we’ll see about the rest.”

“Ooh Yusuf, you say all the right things.” Nicky groans and drops his chin onto his forearms. "Happy birthday to me, indeed."

**Author's Note:**

> Of course my first foray into this wholesome, beautiful pairing is a necrophilia fic. But honestly, what are you going to do after 900+ years, not have at least a handful of weird kinks? 
> 
> If you enjoyed this, please let your friendly neighborhood smut peddler know with a life-sustaining comment and a kudo or two, if you can spare it. 
> 
> Here is ye olde presence upon [Tumblr dot com,](http://whoreschach.tumblr.com/) if that's your jam.


End file.
